


en passant

by BakerStreetOwl



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anarchy, Bisexual Benny Watts, Bisexual Beth Harmon, Bisexual Chess Disasters, Chess, Chess Geniuses on Holiday, Communism, Counterculture, Counterculture Benny Watts, Dissociation, Domestic Fluff, European Holiday, F/F, F/M, Infidelity, KGB, Marijuana, Multi, Paris (City), The Author Regrets Nothing, Tranquilizers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:40:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 20,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27721544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BakerStreetOwl/pseuds/BakerStreetOwl
Summary: Perspectives mid-play and after.
Relationships: Benny Watts/Original Female Character(s), Beth Harmon/ Other(s), Beth Harmon/Benny Watts, Beth Harmon/Benny Watts/Other
Comments: 32
Kudos: 152





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a moment over chess, a moment of realization, later.

Tick, click, tick, click.

The girl. Her lips, too compressed. Her eyes, flat. Brown. Click back. Board, game. She's taking a moment. Too long to visualize, he sees it, she's hesitating. Benny's seen her not like this before, relaxed, up the stairs, an instinctual knight move.

Glazed. The game unfolds, he's a brief pause, glances, remembers. Not her best. She's slow. Too slow. Blink, click, move, tick.

His fingers itch. Not fast enough, Harmon. Not fast, too hesitant on the clock button. Her eyes to his.

She's not pleading. Just knows. Too slow. Too off. A hand.

The fuck, Benny remembers, later, in the cool dark of New York Cement, belt off, remembering that flip of too-young red hair, the too-steady gaze, cracked at the edges. What the fuck, Harmon.

Too late. Game's over, she's gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> later

She's moving, flowing, fast as the shifting in your head. Faster. You're glad to avoid coffee this morning, glad no eggs. You're hungry: not for food, but for the way she's moving. Not quite like you'd move, that's the spice, the unexpected.

Learning not to lead with queen or knight she is, like you warned her. Girl's a redhaired sponge, a pale, blank-eyed girl, burning you down like she did in tournament. The unexpected sting, the inhale, the exhale so deliberate. You expected, somehow, less.

Less, without whatever blurs those chocolate eyes unnervingly tranquil, without the bottle to lips, liquid courage, this girl is courage, every slender inch of her, every well-tailored dress, she is a contained madness and genius all in one. You wonder, briefly, if she knows, but how could she not? You know. You've seen the board, are a step along with her, step behind when she's really on. When she's not thrown off by concrete, lack of sleep.

You're not kind. Nor do you care. Moscow, for all the marble, willl be worse. For a moment, you wonder if she'll stay there, stay in the bounded squares, the expectant, not quite careful enough ring of KGB or CIA or however she travels, and you see her so unselfconscious, so unguarded, Cleo, the twins, moving too fast for you, too fast for the board.

The girl does rise to a challenge, and you to meet her, and it's no surprise when she moves to meet lips, hips.

You never quite expected her to leave.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> later

No, fuck you, no, this is not what he's about, phone down. Almost regretting, before he's not, hands on the dial again, turning. There's others in the city, not as good at chess, but fuck it, not drunks, either. He's sick of it: sick of her eyes turning to him like she's asking permission, fuck! He's not here to be a keeper. 

Benny owns no queens, and he's always known, known they're attractive, flexible (lovely) distractions from the game. Plays pawns a few times, till the first of them show up, then the second, then it's keeping busy. Fuck Kentucky, anyhow. Give it three years, if that: Beth will be too fluxed to keep that crown. Swallows against that thought; grins. There's a would-be champion here from Boston, and the girl is no one: nothing. Prodigies are a dime a dozen, it's staying power that matters, the will to play it through to the end. He doubts that girl, that Kentucky prima donna, will make it to Moscow. Scoffs, when asks. Wasn't she here?

Yeah well, you gotta pity the kids, sneers. Easy to posture, run them into thinking about pawns, rooks, maybe a bishop. 

Boston kid won't be a Boston kid much longer. Beth would.

Beth won't. Erase her: the moves on the board, especially, the pawn takes pawn, the sun burning bright though the car windshield - (should pay those tickets - nah, won't be a problem for but three months, fuck 'em) - her smooth voice, the curve of her under her black dress, the way her chocolate eyes vanish behind shades, the way she picks up on how you sway, how you watch her sway, those hips, god.

You're distracted, but not distracted enough, and it's checkmate until the sun comes up, not that you can see it, and you wake up, reaching across the bed for that warm flesh, murmuring about her attachment to that rook, but one Beth Harmon, fuck her, is gone.

In bed, you wonder if anyone's shown her how to handle a knife, and then force yourself to forget, playing Borgov ceaseless on the ceiling until you barely remember the name Elizabeth Harmon or why the girl matters anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> further

For all her board flow, for all the moves you can't see, she's transparent, now, a clear "shut up, Benny", even if she can't see what she's doing. Doesn't want to hear you warning her, well, fuck her. A drunk prodigy, like there haven't been a dozen before, but she's got that smile.

So what. A prodigy with tits, you're no fool. "No sex." is as easy off your lips as anything else, but you play chess all the way to New York, trying to ignore wonder transparent from those luminous chocolate eyes, trying not to treasure every move that gets past her (some lips move, hers don't, her eyes just go fixed. you know. you know, you've seen it: in the mirror, in passing, through the open bars of a staircase.)

From Kentucky. The young champion, hair burning bright. Just another teenager pressed into service. Funny, usually they're Soviet.

Beth Harmon's American, and only they can burn so fast, and you know with the second beer, she burns too bright, breaches too fast. You watch her turn down Cleo with a glance at you and it's.

Well it's a hook through your belly, and you know you could own her, pin her to the bed, strip off that tailored dress, wreck her for anyone else. Have her focus just on you. For a moment, you imagine her: wrecked every day under you, rank with sweat, full of you.

You remember her on the staircase and want to be sick, remember that glaze of the eye, and have to have a moment, alone. Don't lose your lunch (you've a budget, and half of it is parking tickets), you've got tolerances.

Close your eyes when she leaves. You love her, but god damn is that rocket fuel not returning to earth.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> across the board

She thinks of him when she's on her knees on the lawn, frantically scooping up the bottles, smiling nervously, trying to avert the eyes of the neighbors by will alone, and not entirely succeeding, and she wants a drink. Thinks of him when she's drinking, on her knees on the carpet, the wallpaper swimming in front of her eyes, when she's playing blurring, ecstatic games on the ceiling, when she's reaching for another one of her pills. His focus, across a chessboard, his fingers on her arm - on a pawn, a glance under that frankly ridiculous hat, and how she wants to take it, like his knight, tousle his hair, get it messy, smooth it down with her fingers with some oil, with some...

It's a time later and she's in the bathroom, tilted over, cheek against the tile, and there's Borgov's game, clear against... some surface. What surface. A whine is caught in her throat somewhere, like a feral animal, like a gasp, and when she tries to lift her head, lights flash before her eyes like cameras, and her hands come up to protect her eyes. She comes back down, alone again on the tile, and she'll need to clean again.

Her throat is rough, her head is swimming, and the only thing not moving above her is the board. If she can just stay there, she'll be fine. It'll all be fine.

Somewhere downstairs the phone is ringing, and she tries to sit up, fails. Slumps against the tub, watches the rook go. The phone is ringing again, is it him? Is the rook Benny? Is the phone?

A giggle works up from her sternum, rough, painful, and she doubles over, gasping. Still ringing. Still swimming, and somehow her hands have found their way to her hair, clutching. Stop. Focus. Look up, Beth, look up.

Pawn takes pawn. The phone's stopped ringing. She tilts her head back, wishes she had the bottle of wine to hand, wishing she could just get some sleep. Remembers the second game ever against him. There's a flaw there, he'd had her play through it. Beth takes a deep breath in, sets up the board next to the other on the ceiling, reaches up with her eyes, inhales painfully. The room stops swirling for just a minute, and the pieces begin to move.

His fingers begin to move the pieces and her hands flutter uselessly at her sides for a moment as she focuses. No more hands. No more Benny. She can make him go away with just a blink.

There.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> benny's thinking wildflowers and the long game.

There's static on the line, but not so much static that you miss the crack in Beth's voice, the incredulous, tremulous response. It hits you like the tilt of her head, like the first coffee of the day, and you can see her as if she were here: vividly, that bright-burning hair, just as clearly as you can see each and every game with her and the shifting of positions across the board.

To business. You knew you couldn't leave her alone in Moscow, but hell if you're flying out there. You just didn't fucking know, not until now, if she'd kick the bottle.

(She might not have, and that's hard to think. Not like you haven't seen someone sober as a judge for five years and turn into a drunkard overnight.)

But for the moment, the girl might as well be Justice herself, never mind the judge, your own sharp white queen advancing across the Moscow board. You wish Borgov joy, and loss, in the same thought. 

Beth's so with you, so present as you move through the four scenarios, the positions. You drill her as if she were here in New York, sitting across from you at the table. Sharper than she had been from Kentucky. You want to run the phone bill up higher, hear her half-laugh, walk through a million scenarios with the girl. 

You don't wonder till later who the man who picked up the phone was, but Moscow is Moscow. The Soviet Union is another world, and you're already thinking about the slow game, the tease.

You're already making plans for Kentucky once she's off the phone.

It's on brand, you figure, to show up with some wildflowers just wilted enough to charm.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> north meets south

There's a shiny new car pulled up out front, and golden light shining through the front windows of a perfectly normal-looking house. Benny's not sure what he expected. He saunters up, knocks on the door, and it's not Beth who answers. The black girl who opens the door, looks him up and down, and purses her lips, is definitely no Harmon.

"You're one of her chess friends, aren't you?" She looks him up, looks him down, doesn't move out of the doorway. Her gaze takes in the hat, the knife, the wilted flowers in his hand. Lips quirk, and she's looking at him with... what, pity?

"Well? Is she home?" he asks. 

"Not for those flowers." She looks down her long nose at him, crown of hair at attention on her head. The hell does she know? "There's a flower shop. Five blocks that way, take a right. Can't miss it. Get some better ones."

She slams the door in his face.

Benny stands there a moment. Turns, leaves.

* * *

"One of your friends turned up," Jolene tells her, when she gets back with the groceries. Beth's body is humming with a pleasant soreness, badminton, all afternoon. As a consequence, there's broccoli, chicken, piles of potatoes. "Dumb hat, brought you the shittiest flowers I've ever seen in my life."

"Dumb hat... Benny?"

"That's your Benny? Damn girl, get higher standards." Jolene closes the law text she's skimming, stares at her. "What's with the knife? That coat?"

"It's about the chess." Beth states the obvious. "Not about the fashion. Besides." She shrugs. "He doesn't think like that."

"Neither do you, but you manage to turn yourself out in some good-looking dresses." Jolene grins. "I told him to bring back some better flowers."

Beth laughs.

* * *

When he knocks again, he's got a nicer bouquet in his hands. Still has the hat on. Jolene smirks and lets him in, heads off towards the kitchen. He trails behind, taking in the art, the color, the smell of dinner frying up. Drops the flowers on the counter to absorb Beth into his arms, drop his cheek to her hair. Feels her smile into his chest before she pulls back.

"You drove down?"

"Last night." He can't get enough of her face, those eyes, the snap in them, that lack of blankness. She brings the bouquet to her nose, inhales, they flutter closed. Jolene, off to the side, is studiously examining a book without reading it, a wry smirk curling her lips. 

"Benny, they're beautiful," Beth tells him, and Jolene's smirk graduates to a grin. God dammit, he's in trouble, he thinks, settles in, elbows against the counter next to her, refusing to be cowed by this... what, who is this woman, what the hell?

Beth looks at them. "Benny, this is Jolene. My sister."

"Your sister." He glances aside, meets a glare, holds it, unblinking. "Right. Nice to meet you, Jolene."

"We've met," she replies, that grin back on her face. Beth busies herself with finding a vase, Benny busies himself by opting out of the staring contest, finds the coatrack, hangs hat, hangs coat. Takes in the modern art, the line of trophies on the piano. The racks and bags on the table.

Jolene interrupts this by shoving some plates, some silverware into his hands. "Racks and bags can go next to the stairs. I'm sure you know how to set the table."

There's a faint snort almost like a laugh, from the kitchen. He narrows his eyes at Jolene.

"Sure."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mid-board.

If Beth was slightly less polite, she'd shove Jolene out the door, but instead she has to sit through dinner and two hours of her sister and Benny posturing at each other. Jolene finds at least a dozen different ways to complain about the hat, the knife, and the coat. It's when she starts in on Benny's inability to small talk and how awkward he is that Beth begins to stare unblinkingly at Jolene.

"It's late," she says, not for the first time, but louder this time. Benny's look is so transparently relieved before it goes back to that vague, devil-may-care smile. There's a tickle of guilt in her stomach, but she stands, extending her hands to Jolene, who looks, abruptly, like she's been caught with a hand in the cookie jar. "Benny, bring in your things. I'm sure Jolene has a ways to drive."

She stares straight through Jolene as she mutters something and fetches her things, then turns to stare at the chessboard, ignoring Benny too. There's some mutters between the two as Jolene leaves, and she hears first the slam of Benny's trunk, then the closing of the front door.

"Look," he says, caught on the wrong foot. "I'm sorry. I should have called."

Beth turns on her heel, decides to smile. "I appreciate you humoring Jolene. You're the first of my friends she's met."

"Right." He studies her, bag still in hand as she drifts across the living room to him. Her eyes flick up to his mouth, his hair, and finally his eyes. Steady, that look, like she's made a move on the chessboard. 

When she turns and heads upstairs, he follows her, grinning a bit.

* * *

Jolene calls the next day, while she's frying up an omelet, and Benny hands her the phone, trades places at the stove without a word.

"Look," she says. "I'm sorry about last night. He's clearly important to you, and I got my back up." Beth waits, says nothing. "I'm not used to your chess nerds. I'll get over it."

"Good," says Beth, then waits.

"Anyway, let me know when you know what your schedule is, I'm so used to your ass not having plans."

Beth grins, looks down. At the stove, Benny is tilting the omelet slowly out onto a plate. Looks up, looks back down, seasons it with some cheese, waves the salt shaker over it, she nods. "I should know by tomorrow." she says. "I'm still on for badminton."

"Right." A pause. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

"I will." 

Benny's got two forks for the omelet, and some coffee on the counter, and he passes her a forkful as she leans into his side, right into her mouth. "Look at you," she says. "Benny Watts."

"Someone said I should be nice to you," he mutters. "Buy you nice flowers."

She snorts on her coffee, and then they're both laughing, light and free.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An exchange of pieces.

They fuck, and they play chess, and they banter, and Beth learns more from Benny, about Benny - and about chess. Within a week (a week that passes faster even than those blurred, drunken hours she shies from the thought of), a box shows up from New York, and it's every single magazine and pamphlet, and a few new ones. "From the boys," he tells her, and she's surprised. 

"They're still in New York?" she asks.

"This last week, sure." Benny slices the the tape off with his knife, flips it in his hand, puts it away, and she just looks at him. He refuses to notice, pulls the dusty stacks out. "I should just put these in a suitcase," he says, sorting through the top layer. "Easier to find them."

"Or," she says, wry, "You could put them on a bookshelf."

"I could do a lot of things," he says, "But they'd be somewhere else every six months anyway." 

There's an ache in Beth, something that used to send her for the tranquilizers, but she says it anyway "You move that often?"

"No real need to stay put," Benny shrugs off. "Not the way it works."

"It," she says. "You really don't do much except chess, do you?"

"Well," he shrugs it off, not looking at her, not bothering to engage. "Sometimes I play poker."

"Poker." She doesn't know why she's surprised, tells him as much. "Fits the cowboy look."

He grins at her. "You have to admit, it works."

"For chess," she points out.

"Hasn't been much else." He looks up, abruptly, and she can see him wanting to change the subject. Something in her rears for a fight, a real competition. Not all this dodging. But he sees the look on her face, and there's something she can't read there. 

"Stop doing that."

"I'm sorry." He says, without an ounce of pretense or swagger. "Beth, I'm not going anywhere just yet. Not without you."

She flushes, looks away. God damn him.

"But," he says, and she tenses. "You're telling me you want to stay here unless there's another Borgov to defeat? There's that much here that scratches that itch? Badminton doing it for you?"

"What if it is," she throws back, knowing she's halfway to lying, knowing he knows.

"You can play good badminton anywhere. Tennis," he scoffs. "Only so many places you can play good chess." He watches her like he can see all the way to the pit in her stomach. "Planes fly both ways, you know."

Beth gives first. "Let's play speed chess," she says abruptly, as artless as the night before.

* * *

"I'm going for a smoke," he says, finally, after the fifth game of (frankly, awful) chess neither is paying their whole attention to.

"Fine," she says, and she's in the kitchen scrubbing at a particularly stubborn bit of egg, when the bitter smoke of something not tobacco drifts in through the window. She stops, thinks, goes outside.

He looks at her. Offers her the joint.

"What, I can't drink, but you'll smoke and it's fine?" she snipes at him, back to wanting a real fight. Chess has done nothing to settle either of them, and somehow, this is harder than just the phone. 

"You ever seen someone too hungover from smoking to play chess?" he points out, and she takes it angrily, inhales. They stand there, passing it back and forth, and she gets less angry, a weight lifting off her chess. A little clearer. 

"I've never smoked it without a drink," she mutters, finally. "It felt different."

"Right." He looks at her. "Your problem wasn't the drinking, Harmon, it was losing. You just ran, and the bottle'd always been there, hadn't it?"

She singes her fingers on the roach passing it back. Like an admission of guilt, she offers, "Sometimes it was the pills too. For a lot longer." She glances down at her hands. "I thought I needed them. They made me less scared. For a while."

He's holding her, then, and she closes her eyes into his chest, just leaning there, chin on her hair. "I will never," he says, "I will never let you near either of them. I'll stop smoking if I need to."

"It's okay," she says. "I never needed a joint like I needed them."

A broad hand strokes up and down her back, she melts into him, eyes still closed, just breathing in the smell of him, the arms around her, letting herself believe for a moment. "Never?" she asks, her voice a bit higher than she wants it.

"You're not getting rid of me that easy, Harmon," he rasps out, and it's not what she wants to hear. But she's not ready to hear that either, and they sway together under the slowly darkening sky as the lights come on in the neighborhood and the stars come out in the sky.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pause before moves.

Beth doesn't try to have Jolene over to the house for dinner: she does end up spending more time at restaurants with her, and it's over some excellent pasta that Jolene brings up Benny.

"You know I don't think much of your boy," is how it comes up, and Beth gives a disinterested hum, focused more on the shrimp than Jolene. Deliberately. Jolene just grins at her. "But you seem happier, and that's what matters, so what the hell."

"Really." Beth looks up from her unblinking study of the shrimp. "I'm glad to hear that."

"Best that we're not spending much time in the same room," Jolene allows. "But I can be happy you're happy."

Beth smiles. Looks down at her plate. "He's not going anywhere, apparently." she offers in response. "But his entire world is chess." She chews meditatively, as Jolene laces her fingers under her chin, elbows on the table. "A lot of mine is too. He told me I can play badminton everywhere, and he's not wrong."

"He's not," Jolene says. "But it's not just about the game. Though, you're still pretty awful."

The waiter refills their waters, and they eat in silence for another minute or so. Beth says "I'm not leaving Kentucky, but I might not be here all the time either, maybe."

"Your life has never been here all the time anyway." Jolene points out. "Something tells me you've got more than a tournament or two you're thinking about."

Beth sips her water. "No. Maybe a few weeks. Or a month. I'm thinking of New York. And Paris."

"Well look at you." Jolene grins. "What do you think you'll do with the house?"

"I don't know." Beth frowns. "I've been thinking of talking to my lawyer about having some help hired, and the mail picked up, but it's an expense."

"Lawyer's a good start. Suppose the neighbors aren't interested in looking in."

"No." Beth hadn't talked to the neighbors terribly much before the drinking, and now she mostly ignores them. They do her the favor of ignoring her, as far she can tell. "Mostly I'm worried about keeping up with the badminton."

"There's clubs everywhere." Jolene points out. "But something tells me it's not the badminton you're worried about."

"No." Beth sighs. "Not really."

"You did alright in Moscow. Touched anything since then?"

Beth glances away, and Jolene gives her a look. A serious, disbelieving look. "Benny brought some pot with."

"Pot. Lord. Won' give you a hangover, I suppose."

"That," Beth says, "Is what Benny said."

Jolene scoffs, then laughs. "Guess he's good for something, then. Look, don't touch the pills, don't touch the bottle."

"Benny said..." Beth pauses, watches Jolene, who just looks at her. Right, get on with it, Harmon. "He'll help. Like he did before, in New York." She shrugs. Flags down the waiter for the check. "He was good at it. I didn't want it, there."

"Well look at that," Jolene marvels. "It's almost like it's not the bottle or the pills. Or the pot."

"Yeah, well, it doesn't work if he goes away," Beth finds herself saying, and Jolene stares at her long and hard as she signs the check.

"Boy drives all the way from New York to see you and hasn't left in what... two weeks?" Jolene snorts. "He's not going anywhere."

* * *

Benny kisses her cheek when she gets back, and then, lingeringly, her lips, right there at the door, and she leans into him, letting him hold her a moment.

"I've been reviewing some of the matches from the latest in Las Vegas," he tells her, shows her a trio of letters, dated one after the other. The last has a cut out of a news article. "There's a new champion in California with an interesting variation on the Scotch Game."

He has it set up on the table already, and she's willing to be distracted as he talks her through it, and then she talks him through the variations on defense. When they look up, it's late, and she's fading, though it seems they just sat down.

"We can write it up tomorrow," he suggests, and she, yawning, agrees.

Later Beth lies awake, watching the pawns move on the wall, thinking the variations, and the things to be done to the house, through in parallel. Behind her, Benny stirs, half awake. Wraps an arm around her waist, presses his lips to the back of her neck. Sighing, she closes her eyes. She'll play another move in the second, she thinks, but she's drifting, warm in his embrace, into a deep, sweet sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> checking some notes

Beth is tense in the morning, her hands a bit too aflutter, her eyes a bit too far away, and Benny can't help but mirror her. They're not quite snappish over breakfast of sausage and eggs. She tends to the front yard, surreal domesticity, and he finds a pad of paper, a pen, perches himself on her couch to begin writing down the first few pages - a notation here, a sketch of a play there. Between yardwork and penwork, they don't resume play till noon.

"Tell me what you think," he says, when she's checkmated him, and her eyes, opaque, scan through the pages.

"It's accurate", she allows. "What's it for?"

"Hilton's thinking of a book on modern American strategies and masters. Wanted to talk to you first, at least half of the brains here's in your head."

"A book." Beth doesn't quite frown, but she seems disinterested, not quite dismissive. "I'm not that much of a writer."

"Well, the nice thing, Harmon, is you don't have to be." Benny leans back in his chair. "I've got the chops. But no one's seen your chess this close up, in this way, except Beltik. Harry may be a decent player, but he can't write for shit either."

She nods, slowly. "So you came down here for a book," she says.

"I came down here," he rejoins, tilting back down, taking her hand. She doesn't take it back, her lips curved a bit, "for you, in all your difficulty. And, you know." He glances at the board. "Seems I'm a glutton for punishment." 

Her lips curve up then, secretly, mischievously. Benny kisses the knuckles of the hand, lets it go. "Hilton did ask," he offers, "if you were coming back to New York. Or Paris next month."

"Paris." All of her humor seems to wither. "I don't know about Paris."

"No Russians," he tells her. "Not unless you want them. I'll be with you the entire way. Maybe we can see some tourist sights. Eat baguettes." Her lips quirk back up then, very slightly - she's more mercurial than a casual study would make, his girl. "Spend too much money on some new dresses for a very fancy lady."

"Benny!" She's laughing now, a bit. What he was aiming for. Warmth uncurls in his chest, some tightness easing. "Maybe we should spend some money on some nicer clothes for you, if we're going to be in Paris."

"Some very fashionable pocket protectors, to blend in with the rest of the chess nerds? How the hell are you gonna tell me apart from them?"

"That's why you dress like that?" is her rejoinder, lightning fast, sharp. It'd be cutting, but it's too true. 

"Well," he drawls, unwilling to let her lean back into whatever mood haunts her. "They expect all Americans to wear a cowboy hat in Europe, why disappoint them?" Outright laughter, now. "Makes me easy to find at a tournament. Just think, you wouldn't be able to pick me out from any of the other US grandmasters."

"I will always know it's you, Benny," she says, and there's that traitorous warmth again, curling through his stomach. He takes her hand again, and they sit like that a moment, staring into each other's eyes. "Yes."

"Yes." He smiles at her, not willing to be sarcastic here, in this moment. "Next month, Paris?"

"Next month, wherever you want," she promises, and he laughs at her. 

"Be careful, Harmon. Words like that will get us both back in Moscow."

* * *

It's all set dressing, Benny tells her one night as they're preparing for bed - one of the few nights left in Lexington where they're not tumbling from chessboard to tearing off clothing. Setting scenes, preparing characters to enter and leave, knowing where to stand. Wiring things appropriately."

"How theatrical," she responds, delighted. "Except the house is the lead here, and everything back here."

"Well," he says, "It's been something to do sometimes."

"Theatre?" She pauses from massaging some pale cream into her face, turns to him. "Really?"

"A long time ago. You know, nice clothing collects too much dust, and a knife is quite handy." 

He decides he likes this Beth he's getting to know, her laughing at him, eyes alight with some joy he didn't quite expect, seizing on the smallest details of his peregrinations and permutations. Just as much as she's seized by the variations of chess and the gameplay, he supposes.

It's a wonder, to know he's the focus of that much attention, that much... infatuation.

She's brushing her teeth when he brushes a kiss across her hair, and they meet eyes in the mirror before he steps out to catch a breath of air.

He opens the bedroom window to let in the cool night, and stands a moment by the curtains, thinking, hoping. Infatuation, intrigue, love? He's seen Beth before, obsessed with the game, the bottle, whatever challenge is before her. Was she like this with Beltik? The man in Moscow? Whoever else she's spent lonely hotel beds with?

Thinking about it, he remembers her flirting with him - partways to get him to shut up, he remembers, from what feels like years ago. What had Beth Harmon wanted, then? 

Come to New York. I'll coach you.

Sleeping with the girl will let her think she owns you, let her think she can... what? He looks down at his hands, calloused, rough. Remake him into part of this set piece with modern art and new furniture, and new clothes, maybe. He doesn't mind that, but there's going to be move and countermove, not just move. 

He's thinking of chess metaphors and exchanges of give and take, of running down the coming days and months and... years? With putting his stamp on her, like her stamp's on him. There's rustling behind him now, as she turns down the bed, makes ready for sleep, and he turns, looks at her.

"New clothes are fine," he tells her, goes to her, kisses her mouth, surprised but welcoming under his. "But," he tells her, leaning her back to sit on the bed as he crowds over her, cradles her head in his hands, "I'm keeping the hat."

He presses her back into the soft bed, thoughts of chess and theatres and set and setting fluttering from his mind as he loses himself to her in the best way possible. And somewhere between kisses and later, them entwined, drifting slowly to sleep, he takes her own surrender and resignation.

Draw, he thinks, contentedly, sleepily, and pulls her closer to his chest. She sighs, murmurs his name.

And all is quiet.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> planning an adjournment

They split logistics by continent: Benny finds the right flights, at the right times, produces a notebook full of numbers and addresses. "I think girls usually call this a little black book," he drawls to her one day, over the table spread with scratch paper, maps, newspapers. "Wouldn't hurt for you to start one of your own." 

His tasks, too, involve two map of Paris, red and blue markers. At her request, he finds a gym with a badminton court, and a salon to tend to her hair. To her requests for nice restaurants and interesting shopping, he defers to the notebook. "We'll ask Cleo," he tells her. "Or her friends. Models know where all the good clothes are, I figure." Later that day, there's a new notebook with her name, and a list of numbers. In crabbed handwriting, there's also notes on their interests - not something, Beth thinks, she would have expected out of Benny.

Beth hasn't the patience for such work, but she's comfortable settling Lexington affairs. She's also the one making the calls to Benny's friends, who take an unknown woman telling them to empty out his basement with a distinct lack of surprise. Two days later, an envelope thick with parking tickets arrives: without a word, she leaves it with her lawyer.

This precipitates one of their first yelling arguments, and Benny storming out for a couple hours. Beth flutters through the house, unable to concentrate on what needs doing, even dishes. She moves a pawn in one of their idle side games, and wishes desperately for a drink, a tranquilizer. Instead, she calls Jolene, who is surprisingly unsympathetic.

"You're acting like you're married, and you barely started dating, Beth." Jolene tells her. "Let the man handle his own problems, some. It'll settle him down. Or show him he's lucky for the help when he actually needs it."

"There were three year old tickets, I'm surprised he's still able to drive!" Beth tells her, exasperated. "I don't understand, I was doing him a favor!"

"He's been alone how long? Man like that likes to manage his own affairs. Look." There's a long pause. "You remember how I came and picked you up and made arrangements with you for a week while you sweated out the wine and god knows what else?"

Beth frowns. "Yes?"

"You needed that. You were down the hole, Beth." She sighs. "Stupid hat or not, your boy's not down a hole. You need to let him make his own choices, not make them for him."

"He's made plenty for me." Beth twists the phone cord around a trembling finger. 

"And do you mind any?"

"No."

"I've got an idea Beth - maybe you two talk like adults, okay? He didn't take his things when he left, did he?"

"No." She glances at the few things they have packed - his library in a suitcase. And at his board, game in progress. It settles her, a bit. "He didn't."

"He swear or raise a hand to you."

"No!"

"Then let him cool off some. Sounds like it'll do you both some good. Listen - I've got class in the morning."

"Alright." Beth shrugs, sighs. Closes her eyes. "Thanks Jolene."

"Shit, girl, make sure you make some friends in Paris, too. Or you'll both be climbing the walls."

"Yes. Goodnight, Jolene."

"Night, cracker."

* * *

Benny comes back sometime around bedtime, hangs his hat up, just looks at her. Beth swallows. "I'm sorry," she says. "I should have asked."

"You should have," he says. Just looks at her. Looks at the board. Raises an eyebrow, looks it over closer.

"Jolene said," and his shoulders tense. "She said I should let you handle your own life. And we should talk about it. Our life. Your life." She's so bad at this, and all of a sudden, she sees the vast gulf where she understands nothing about how this all works. "I don't know what you want me to be, or what you are to me. I've never done this before, not this long."

"Beth," he says, and his eyes have gone soft. He comes, takes her by the shoulders, looks into her eyes, serious. "I haven't either." 

She looks down. "I'm afraid one day I'll do something and you'll just... be gone. Like before."

"Yeah, well. That's not happening." He tilts her chin up with a finger. "Unless you want me gone, Harmon." Inspects her face. "Do you want me gone?"

"No!" She shakes her head vehemently. "But I hate this. I don't know how to do this."

Benny draws her against his chest, pets her hair. She closes her eyes, inhaling. Here. He's here. Not going anywhere. Maybe one day she can believe it, she thinks.

"Me either," he tells her. "But I think, with the two of us, we can figure anything out." 

She smiles into his shoulder, looks up. "Maybe we should talk about it. Soon. What we're doing with each other."

He leans down, draws her in for a kiss. Smiles at her when he's done. "Tomorrow."

"Yes."

* * *

The next day is a warm, muggy one, and they picnic in the backyard, passing a joint back and forth, talking about this and that.

"I mostly just maintain," Benny tells her. "I know some people do investments, buy property, but I've been all over the place so much that I just don't. I don't buy furniture, or much I'd have to carry. It's all about travel, or chess for me."

"Or theater?" Beth asks, lazing on her stomach, brushing crumbs of cheese sandwiches off the blanket.

"When I'm in town long enough. New York's been the longest I've been in a place - I keep a box at the post office, mostly."

"I've just had the lawyer, since Alma passed." Beth says. Takes a deep draw on the joint, lets the smoke leave her nostrils in a lazy stream. "He takes care of everything paperwork - the taxes, the house, the bills."

"What if the lawyer turns crooked?"

"Hasn't yet." She shrugs. "I could ask Jolene to recommend someone, I guess. But I'd be out money. Maybe other things."

"Well, it's not broken now." Benny takes the joint from her, takes his own hit. "Doesn't sound like it needs fixing. It's just all... trivia."

"Didn't you tell me to read the footnotes?" Beth teases. "For shame, Benny Watts."

"It's more overhead, I assume you have to pay the man."

"True," Beth says. "But if I'm playing chess regularly, then it's not a problem."

Benny hums, stretches out the hand with the joint to her. Strokes her cheek as she inhales, leans in, sucks the smoke from her lips. "We'll be playing plenty of chess in Paris," he says. "I'll pay you back for the tickets."

"Alright." She blinks at him, smiling. "What will we do when we're not playing chess? Moscow was... boring."

"The finest opera and caviar in Russia, and Beth Harmon is bored," he teases, running a thumb over her lip. She bites it, briefly, and watches his eyes go dark. "There's an entire community there, like New York. We'll drink coffee, and take walks, and I'll type up all the clever moves you pull out of your head. At night, we'll play poker, or stay in and play chess. Or go see new art, in your fancy new dresses."

"In your fancy new shirts," she rejoins, releasing his thumb. He grins at her. "I don't know how to play poker."

"It's just like chess," he tells her. "Winning combinations, and a blank face. But, you know." He shrugs. "Less fun." He hits the roach, pinched carefully between his fingers, leans in, blows the smoke into her mouth. 

Beth blinks, languid in her high, in the sun. Pulls him down into an involved kiss.

The roach burns a hole in the corner of the picnic blanket, but neither of them notice, or care.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crossing the board

Beth comes home from seeing her lawyer and hiring a gardener to find a dog-eared French to English dictionary sitting next to her dinner plate, and takeout in the middle of the table. The other place settings are, by this point, taken up by Benny's notebooks and maps. 

"A present," she murmurs. "Benny, what a lovely new book."

"It was one of the easiest when I was thirteen," he tells her. "I thought it'd help you in France. Of course, if you think it's beneath you..." He arches an eyebrow at her. Pops a bite of food into his mouth. "I'm sure we can go out and spend money at the store."

"God forbid." Beth stares at him. "So what kind of basement have you reserved for us in Paris?"

He grins at her. "Only the finest for you, Harmon. The rats over there are exotic, just like the furs."

"Furs. Who wears furs?" Beth spars back, and spears a piece of broccoli on her fork. "Russians?"

"We could defect. Get you a... what do they call it? Ushanka?"

She wrinkles her nose at him. "Maybe you should defect. More competition might up your game." Gets up, makes to clear the table, and he grabs her wrist, comes up with her. 

Beth raises an eyebrow at him, doesn't object. "Or yours," he rejoins. "You need kept in check."

"If you can get me there," she shoots back, a flush up on her cheeks. He presses her, slowly, so slowly, back against the wall, and whispers in her ear. "If we ever leave our hotel room, maybe I'll give you a chance.

There's no answer after that, but the table ends up considerably less tidy. No more work is done that night.

* * *

Beth drives herself to exhaustion the next day, and droops through the handoff of luggage, the boarding of the plane. Benny is charmed when she slips to sleep on his shoulder, french dictionary dangling from one hand. She sleeps half the flight, and wakes up when he's drifting off, demanding two cups of strong black coffee, and his attention as she works her way through the basic tourist phrases.

By the time they land in Paris, he's two of his own cups of coffee in, and Beth is studying verbs, occasionally testing pronunciation at him.

They're a few days ahead of the competition by arrangement, so they're free of press or interruptions. As usual, eyes drift towards his hat, then away. Soon enough, there's a taxi loaded with their baggage, and they're off into the city.

Beth stares out the window, expressionless. Benny takes her hand, squeezes it. "You drifting off there, Harmon?"

"No. Yes." She looks down at their hands. "Wishing you'd been with me last time. I made a fool of myself."

"Well, it's a new start." He smiles at her, and she looks up. "I mean, you might still make a fool of yourself. But not from drinking."

"Benny!"

"We'll be fine. Besides." He runs a thumb over her knuckles, watches her expression soften. "That's just the flight talking. We'll get some more coffee into you once we've checked into the pension."

"Pension. Not a basement?" She fires back. There's his Harmon, and he holds his exhale, his relief.

"They were all out of them, sorry. Maybe next time we can sleep in the catacombs." He's enjoying this, the ease into comfortable back and forth. "I hear even the rats are classy here."

She gives him a look. "And what's your excuse, Benny?"

He could stop the grin. He doesn't, watches her bloom, pleased with his pleasure in their mutual needling. God, he thinks, the girl needs a fight like she needs coffee and the chessboard. Reaching out, he brushes her hair back behind one ear, and she pouts, just a bit. "Well," he drawls. "Me? I'm just some chess hick."

He's rewarded by genuine laughter out of her, and he sees the driver glance in the rear view mirror, then back forward. The car is slowing as they encounter traffic, and the cityscape of Paris is becoming more and more familiar. There, a lamp in front of a house he thinks he recognizes. Here, a a statue of some general. 

"We're almost there," he tells her. They pull in before a pair of blue doors, a building facade studded with shutter-framed windows, a modest pot of flowers. "I think, he tells her, watching the driver handing her out of the taxi (much to her faint, but present displeasure, "you'll like this. Think of it as a present."

"A present." Her lips curve, anticipatory, he thinks. He's been hitting his mark, there, he thinks. He raps on the door three times, then rings the bell. There's a moment, and then a black-clad woman is there, regarding both of them down her nose. 

"Hello," he tells the landlady, switching to French. He has to remember his accent, and then it's like yesterday. "I'm Benny Watts, this is Beth Harmon. We've accommodations?"

"Unmarried, she sniffed, and vanishes from the door. Benny glances back at a clearly vexed Beth, reaches for her. 

"Come on," he says, and leads her through into the dim interior.

Beth stops just inside, releasing his hand to take a slow, pivoting circle. It's all dark wood - bookshelves, comfortable chairs. The scent of tobacco, wine, coffee, and dust. Benny watches her a moment, and then goes to discuss matters with the landlady.

When he returns, he finds her examining the chessboard set between two comfortable chairs, her lips quirked. There is a pawn missing from the set. 

"There are a distinct lack of rats," she tells him in mock seriousness, and he smiles. 

"I might have embellished. No rats. But dinner... and chess, this weekend."

"I suppose," Beth says, "that's acceptable."

* * *

For the whole glorious weekend, it's chess. Easy chess, as usual, then hard chess, comparing notes with Benny in between games. Beth is pleased and surprised to meet Luchenko in a game. Without the interference of Booth, she finds herself embroiled in a detailed discussion with him for a good part of the evening after their game.

Benny finds them there on a sofa some hours later, code switching cheerfully between Russian and English. Beth's Russian has smoothed out, and Luchenko's English is nearly flawless, and while his KGB handlers are glowering from the bar, they don't seem inclined to interfere with the two.

"Should I be jealous?" Benny drawls, leaning over the couch to kiss Beth's hair. She turns her face up for a peck on the cheek, and Luchenko beams at them with benign pleasure. 

"Mr. Watts! I should congratulate the both of you. Only, you haven't bought the young lady a ring yet."

"Well," Benny says. "Give me a chance to court her without a chessboard in the middle." Beth gives him a look, and Luchenko chuckles. "Without it in the middle all the time, that is." He perches himself on the arm of the couch, and Beth leans into him, hand on his knee, finds herself smiling at Luchenko, at his obvious approval.

"We will be eating at a very fine restaurant tomorrow night, before we return to Moscow." Luchenko tells them. "It would be my pleasure to have both of you as company. Assuming," he gestures, almost dismissively "you do not have other plans. Or, perhaps, wish to be alone."

Beth blushes, all the way up to her ears, but manages a fairly moderate murmur of "I'm sure we're free to join you."

"It will be our pleasure." Benny confirms. He grins at Luchenko.

"Ah, to be young and in Paris." Luchenko takes his coat, rises, beaming benevolently at both of them from beneath his unruly cap of silver curls. "I believe, then, I shall wish you both good night - and I will make sure we find you before we leave."

"Yes. They both rise, Beth taking his hand for a firm shake. "I'm looking forwards to it, she tells him." 

He bows, courtly over her hand, returns Benny's grin, looking for all his years boyish for a moment. As Luchenko rejoins his KGB at the bar, Benny squeezes her shoulders. Wickedly, in her ear, he murmurs, "and maybe tonight we'll have dinner, and I'll have you for dessert."

Beth fights down the flush, and instead pinches him. Their neighbors look up at his yelp as the two leave, arm in arm.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night moves, day moves

They take dinner that night with the other lodgers - a Bulgarian who smokes incessantly, a drunk poet. A single woman who singles out Beth, telling her a sad story of a man already married, and his wife, who loves women better than she should. The hostess, severe in black at the head of the table is a silent, disapproving force: there is copious wine, but the scent, being near to vinegar, doesn't tempt her.

In their room, overlooking the street, Benny takes her coat, kisses her cheek. She is restless, by the window. "We should practice, study." She says, trailing her fingers across the sash.

He's there, behind her, wrapping his arms around her. "Did Luchenko bother you?" he asks. "He brought up something we haven't discussed."

"No." She shrugs. It's a slight lie, he thinks, but she goes on "We're young. It's early, isn't it?" A bland inquiry, her shoulders too taut to be casual.

"We are," he agrees. "Some marry sooner. But it's too soon because we haven't talked about it. Do you want it?"

Beth relaxes, a bit. "Not yet. Maybe." She glances up at him, her eyes serious. "Maybe," she repeats softly, seeming a bit startled.

Benny leans down, kisses her cheek, then her lips as she turns to meet him. Presses her back against the window, cradling her head, stroking her back. Releases her as he feels her take a breath. 

"It's been a long year. You know, I'm much older than you. But not so old I'm desperate for someone to play the perfect housewife."

"I'm not that. I don't think," she says, suddenly, as if inspired, "I'd ever be a good housewife. I don't want to be."

He lifts her hand, kisses it. "I don't want you to be anything but Beth Harmon," he tells her. "I'm not going anywhere - or with anyone - without you."

"Anyone." Her cheeks flush. "What..."

Benny leans in, finds her warm against him, easy to come into his arms. "Not something to worry about yet." He kisses her, lingering on her lips, her clever tongue, the corner of her mouth. "Or ever, if you want." 

"I haven't thought of that," she admits. "As an option." 

"Well," Benny says, "It's not exactly covered in your schoolbooks, or chess manuals." She smacks his chest lightly with a hand, and he grins. "After the tournament, we should see about seeing some friends."

"The only person I know here outside of chess is Cleo." Beth says, reluctantly. "Benny, about that."

"Yeah?" He leans back, looks down at her, then his eyes widen a bit. "You and Cleo?" A grin spreads across his face, and Beth blinks. 

"You're not angry?"

"Well," Benny says, "Cleo's been trying to get into bed with me since we've met, but I'm not usually one for models." He shrugs. "Might be different with you there." He strokes a hand down her arm, and she leans back against his chest, smiling a bit.

"We got drunk the night before the match with Borgov," she says. "She drinks, a lot. I don't remember a lot of it. But... I might, with women."

"You might." Benny hums. "I might also." She gives him a look, cuttingly. "Obviously with women, Harmon. Mostly with geniuses." He shrugs. "There's been a few encounters, with men."

Beth blushes, thinking about it, holding very still against Benny. "I don't think I'd mind that," she says, slowly, "But I like you, mostly. You're... much more there. Present."

He urges her chin up with his fingers, cups her cheek, kisses her. They sway together, slowly, dancing almost, even as they battle for dominance of the kiss. She maneuvers him back, onto the bed, slides into his lap, tilts him over. "Present, huh?" He kisses her lips once more, the corner of her mouth, the curve of her neck, and she gasps against his ear. "You don't just need present," he whispers. "You need someone to push back, Harmon."

She sits up, hair mussed, color high, and squirms atop him. He hisses, grabs her hips and she says, loftily, "And you need someone to put you in your place."

"Well," Benny says, grinning up at her. He shifts under her and she shifts again. "You can try."

* * *

Beth's game goes late, so it's a swift handshake over the board, and then all four of them - Luchenko, a handler, Benny, herself - into a black car at the curb. The handler affects disinterest, but he keeps glancing at Beth throughout the ride, much to her discomfort.

The restaurant is a venerable old establishment, she is told, dating back to before the Second World War. "Of course," Luchenko tells her, "They served very different food during the occupation. I believe they claimed to be Bavarian." He taps his nose, winks. "I understand their Bavarian was terrible. We are very lucky to be here decades later, eh?"

"Right," Benny says. "Best borscht I've had outside of Moscow."

"Perhaps you should come back to Moscow, Mr. Watts." the KGB handler says. "I'm sure you would be very welcome. With your... wife?"

"No." Beth says, and stares at him. "Not his wife."

"If Beth goes back, I'll play in the invitational. If I'm invited." Benny says. "And leave, after the invitational." The handler makes a faint, disgusted noise, lights up a rank cigarette. Says nothing more, takes no more glances at Beth, or Beth's hands.

"I'm sure you would be very welcome," Luchenko says. 

"Come to America again, soon." Benny suggests. "Our players could use the challenge. Beth's running them in circles."

"Perhaps," Beth says, "they should study more." Both men laugh. The handler affects to ignore them once more, but there's a sneer at the corner of his mouth.

Thankfully, he sits at another table - close enough to hear, but clearly with another member of his bureau. 

"Benjamin," Luchenko tells Beth over a dish of smoked fish and pickles, "Is my great disappointment." She tilts her head curiously at him, glances aside to Benny, who just smiles. "One season in Moscow, and then so hard to convince to come back." 

"Well, you know. I kept having to tell Jesus-botherers things I didn't like." He glances at Beth. "Besides, turns out there's more than one way to win."

"You were not," Luchenko points out to him, "there in Moscow. Aside from your handler, you were all alone." he tells Beth, frowning. "You did not seem lonely, but perhaps."

"He was there in spirit," Beth says. "And telephone calls. With others."

"Good things," Benny said, "take time."

"Like these pickles!" Luchenko laughs, ladles more onto his plate with the serving spoon. "It is the small things one misses," he says. "A human voice. The salt of home - it tastes different! More vital."

Beth smiles. "It's true. But it was," she admits. "Lonely."

Luchenko gives her a long look. "I thought you were," he says. "When we played. It is a poor thing, for a master to be alone at a board. We should always have the voices of our peers, and our friends, with us. Even nations away."

Benny is silent, and she looks at him. He shrugs, slightly. Beth says, "That was a larger challenge for me to learn, I think."

"Chess can be very solitary. It is a gift, to have collaborators. Though, very sad when the competition hasn't any." Luchenko nudges the caviar towards her. "With the cheese and the bread, and the onions." he suggests. "You will like it better, then, I think." Beth obeys, carefully preparing the bread, and the Soviet master looks at her, then Benny.

"It feels foul conspiring against a young girl, alone in a strange place. But, what can we do? We were chastised, for your victory. But then, they would also like you as a collaborator."

"I enjoyed chess in Moscow," said Beth, "Especially street chess. But I won't be defecting."

"Good," says Benny. "Not in my plans either."

Luchenko waves a hand. "I was told I must mention it. Now I have mentioned it. I will tell them you ate caviar, and smiled, and will require more persuasion. Gentle persuasion, like an old man playing chess." He leans forwards a bit, lowers his voice to a hush. "My handler, Petrov, he told me you studied with a gentle old man, and perhaps I could persuade you." He looks at Benny. "He did not expect you, I think."

"The KGB has made overtures before." Benny leans forwards, elbows on the table. "They do to every American champion. As I'm sure the CIA does to you. I prefer to be apolitical. Say the right things to keep play open, and hope it calms down."

"I don't think I can say the right thing," Beth admits. "The Christians who initially funded my trip were... very pushy."

"You are not Christian, then?" Luchenko asks. "I understand you were raised by a Christian orphanage."

Beth shrugs. "It's never been a concern of mine."

* * *

"I have a surprise for you," Benny tells her that morning over coffee at a nearby cafe. "Not far from here. You'll want to bring a coat." 

They'd ordered half a baguette and strong black coffee for breakfast, and Beth is enjoying the passers by, considering some shopping. "Alright," she says. "How long will it take? I have an appointment at a boutique at noon."

"Clothes horse," he accuses, grinning. 

"Oh," she says, "It's not for me, it's for you."

"Well, we'll see," he says, "How fast you get bored."

"Bored." She sets her mug down, turns her empty plate. "Let's see this surprise."

They stroll south from Les Marrionniers, taking in the gothic church, the River Seine. "Notre Dame is that way," Benny points, "Across the Pont d'Arcole." 

"We're not going to Notre Dame?" Beth asks.

"Well, if you want to, I won't stop you. I thought you weren't Christian?'

"It's historic," she says, tilting her head slightly. "I've heard it's worth seeing."

"It is," Benny admits. "But if I go for a fifth time, I might change my mind."

Beth laughs. They pass the Sorbonne, full of hurrying students, and come to a vast, beautiful park. "I thought," Benny says, "You might like this park in particular."

"How romantic," Beth says. "I suppose."

"Very romantic," Benny agrees, and they stroll arm. He guides her down the elaborately landscape walkways. Quite suddenly, they turn a corner: there, scattering the pavement, is a collection of tables, and chairs, and players, their heads down over their chessboards.

"This," he tells her, "are the chess players of Jardin des Plantes." He shrugs. "I thought you might want to see it."

"Just see it?" she says. She looks at him. "We're still going to the boutique."

"If you want," Benny agrees, easily. Before she can start for the boards, he takes her arm, leans in, murmurs in her ear. "Put this in your book." She glances at him. "In case someday we can't be here together, or you want to come back this week. You'll want to remember."

She hesitates, nods, and smiles. As she drifts through the small tables, a buzz of recognition follows in her wake. Benny watches: lets her settle at a game, finds one further back into the cloud of tables and chairs. Settling himself, he sets his hat to the side of the board. "Yes?" he asks the old man, and he chuckles.

"Yes."


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New players

The boutique is a bore, if Benny wants to be perfectly honest. The pleasure of watching Beth circle the racks, of watching her mind at work, palls beside the sheer length of time he's there. While he plays and replays the games of the afternoon in his mind, Beth has him changing in and out of shirts, slacks, coats, and asking his opinion on varying textiles. The saleswoman, sensing blood, is urging him to try on styles that would look more at home on Vegas sharks.

Beth, at least, swiftly seems to realize the more outre or older styles aren't something he's interested in after the first time he looks at a lime green blazer, looks at her, and shakes his head. 

"I never thought you were so conservative," she tells him in frustration after he's turned down the fourth plaid in twenty minutes.

"It's not conservative to wear something that won't show dirt," he drawls. The saleswoman is fluttering again, and he wishes, irrationally, for his knife. But picking his fingernails with it would ruin Beth's afternoon, which he won't do. "Besides, you've never seen me really dressed up."

"You don't own dress clothes," she says impatiently, and he grins at her. Oh, what a surprise she's in for. Prim and proper Southerner, her. 

"Not as you'd call them dress clothes," he drawls. "You're all fitted out for a lawn party, darlin'. I'm fitted out for broader circles."

"Just because you live in a basement, does not mean you need to dress like it."

"Oh," he rejoins, "Don't you remember? I don't live anywhere now." He spreads his arms, dramatically. "I'm but a homeless chess bum, living on the charity of the kind-hearted young women of the world."

The saleswoman looks completely horrified at this point. It's likely sheerly due to Beth's fame that he's not been ejected from the shop. Benny can't say he's not considering that angle.

They end up with a grey turtleneck, and a button-up shirt in dark purple Benny is forced to admit fits quite well. "There's a more classic shoe store just further down the road," the young woman advises Beth, casting a distinctly pointed look at Benny's boots. "And perhaps a fedora would suit..."

"A fedora would not suit," Benny interrupts. To Beth, he says "I think I have a better idea."

She arches an eyebrow.

* * *

Beth is put out, but not surprised, by just how disinterested Benny is in the high end fashion trends of Paris. Still, it's a partial victory, the two shirts. She's surprised she argued him into the purple shirt.

There's a pay-phone around the corner, and Benny swings into it, produces the notebook - finds something in particular. Feeds coins one after another into the machine, and has an animated, brief conversation Beth can't hear over the general roar of the street. He takes notes down, hangs up, tells her "Let's grab a taxi."

"Where are we going?" she asks.

"A friend of mine has a workroom. But not in this part of town, it's too expensive here." At her skeptical look, he tells her "Up and coming artists usually don't have that many francs." His lips curl up. "We can't all be chess and poker players."

It's curiosity as much as anything have her agreeing, and after a fast, only slightly perilous ride to a grimy part of town, she's following Benny up the winding stairs of a tall residential building to the very top floor, where a black-doored apartment with flaking white paint numbering it is the sole unit.

At Benny's swift knock, a young woman, her blonde hair cascading to her waist, answers. "Benny!" she cries, and they kiss cheeks. She sweeps Beth into her embrace as well, and both of them inside. "You are Beth Harmon, of course. I am Bernadette." She turns to Benny. "I was surprised you took so long to call!" She sniffs. "Cleo said you'd be busy with chess at least a week."

"Oh, well." Benny shrugs, takes off his hat, hangs it on a chair piled haphazardly with coats, shawls. "I've been distracted." He's careless with his coat as well, and Beth removes her own, looking around the dim entryway. It takes only a moment to realize the only wall is that the door is in. The scent of marijuana and tobacco fill the air, and there's conversation somewhere deeper in the space. 

"Come in, come in, she urges, and sweeps aside one of the thick curtains. 

The space beyond is massive, walls torn out for the most part, making space for scattered couches, mattresses, pillows - but also easels, workbenches, racks of various materials. "You have been quite missed." Bernadette is telling Benny as they thread their way between the nests and workspaces. She steps blithely over a couple who lie entwined on pillows, nude but for an afghan. Beth glances down: a black girl who reminds her of Jolene is entwined a plump redhead. Neither give much mind to the passing trio.

In the corner, a young man with a droopy moustache is seated on a massive pillow, carefully applying a line of beads to a long piece of wool. "Alek," Bernadette calls as they approach, and he doesn't look up, finishes his beading. "I've brought you some clients."

Alek finishes his stitching, then squints up at them. His eyes are red, pupils blown wide. At his elbow, a water pipe sits - not the first one Beth's glimpsed on their way through the community. "Clients. Not comrades."

"Well," Benny says. "I can't speak for Beth."

"Mn. The great capitalist victor over the Soviets." Alek does not appear impressed. "And dressed like it."

Offended, Beth says "I play chess. I'm not political."

"Everything is political," Alek says gloomily. "Chess, clothes, white heroines from America with clean, soft hands."

"I beg your pardon," Beth says, piqued, and turns. Benny grabs her arm, looks at her. 

"Go if you want, don't let the man command you," Alek says. "Unless you like it that way."

"How I like it is certainly none of your business."

Bernadette tsks, takes her other arm. "Alek, Beth is new here. Very new. Let's sit. Perhaps," she suggests, coaxingly, "We could have a smoke together."

"I am running out of the ganja, Bernadette." Alek tells her. 

"I'm sure I have something better than that trash Oleg supplies you with," Bernadette rejoins. "Come. We will watch them painting." To Beth, she murmurs "Forgive Alek. He is very sensitive, but, he is a great artist. You must ignore his opinions - the rest of us do."

Despite herself, Beth smiles. Benny lets go of her arm, his expression unreadable. Alek is grumbling to himself, but he's getting up, setting aside his craft, and fetching an embroidery hoop half-completed: the surface is entirely covered with bright swathes of intricate, abstract patterns. 

The painting is in yet another corner of the labyrinthine space, surrounded by another grouping of varied seating. Benny settles them down on cushions, and Beth leans into him. "I think I understand your basement now," she tells him.

He chuckles. "I try not to fill it with as many people. Bad for concentrating."

"Good for connecting with your fellow man, Benjamin." Bernadette sprawls on Benny's other side, smiles at Beth again. Her eyes, Beth notices with a jolt, are mismatched: one rimmed with kohl, the other in white. "We would be happy to host you again, if you so desire."

"I wanted Beth's introduction to be a bit less jarring," he says. Alek has settled himself next to Bernadette, a much simpler wooden pipe in his hands. Bernadette passes the man a thick, resinous chunk of something, and some ganja as well. 

"What's that?" Beth asks.

"Hashish." Benny says. "Concentrated amount of the same thing. This'll knock me flat on my damn ass, I barely smoke these days. You'll only want a single little hit."

"Then we will load the pipe lightly, for our guest." Alek pockets the chunk. "But perhaps later."

As the other three dicker over the pipe, Beth turns her attention to the artists. A broad canvas lies on the floor, flanked by ladders: from above, the artists are dipping long swathes of fabric into paint, and sweeping the surface in broad strokes of overlapping, brilliant colors. The effect is striking.

The pipe comes to her, cherry deep in the charred bowl, and Beth puffs lightly, experimentally. Flavor, lemony and intense, mingled with other herbal notes, fills her nose, soothing the burn of the smoke. She passes it to Alek, and says "What's in this?"

"An herbal blend, from a garden down the way." Bernadette takes her hit, sighs softly. "It stretches the ganja, and makes for a more relaxed experience, I think. Mugwort, rose, a bit of catnip. Some other things."

"Certainly more pleasant than my brick weed," Benny drawls. He slips an arm around Beth's waist, and she leans into him, some of the tension in her slipping out. The painting is now mesmerizing, the colors vivid, suggestive of ribbons, or swathes of fraying fabric. "You doing alright?" he murmurs in her ear, and she wrenches her eyes away. Nods. Bernadette glances at them, smiles.

"This," she says, "is why we do this. One of the reasons."

"What is this place?" Beth asks.

"A squat." Bernadette takes a draw on the pipe, taps the ashes out into a nearby ashtray. "An artist's collective - mmm, some would call it a commune. I prefer to think we collect the stray cats of the artists and philosophers, and put a roof over their heads."

"We?" 

Bernadette waves a hand. "We try for a consensus. Those who are interested in such things, in any case. Many do not have tolerance for such things."

"Hours of arguing minute detail," Benny tells Beth. "Awful."

"So you're... communists? Like the Soviets?"

"Mmf, no, the Soviets have... lost their way from the principles Marx might have espoused. At that, we reject Marx. Authoritarianism does not work so well, here." Bernadette laughs. "If it works at all, long term."

"Point is," Benny says, "this is an anarchist space. The idea is, no one's supposed to know about it who's not connected. Inevitably, someone will find out... someone who shouldn't."

"And then we leave." Bernadette shrugs. "We take as many as we can, and find a space in the catacombs, or in the homes of sympathizers, or perhaps take a sojourn in the country. It will be soon, again." she tells Benny. "You are lucky my number still works."

"Andre will always know where you are," he says, and Bernadette laughs. 

"It is true," she says. "I am like a stray cat in his garret in between one commune and the next. But always, I am drawn back. There is so much to be done, and I do very poorly sitting idle."

"You also," Alek contributes, not looking up from his embroidery, "Enjoy his cock. And his wife."

"Ah, but it is a lovely cock, and his wife is so very good with her hands." Bernadette sighs, wistful. "Though, she would make a terrible comrade, I think. She is the dictator, you see, of their house." she tells Beth.

Benny laughs. "But it's a fine house."

"It is. So now. Beth, mmm, Benny said you are having quite the trouble dressing him."

"I think," Beth says slowly. "Benny and I dress up for different things."

"Mmm, fashion is a performance, and you are performing... a boss! A Jackie Kennedy, yes? Very Hepburn, very aligned with the culture. You are in charge of yourself, the chessboard - the chess players..." She prods Benny, and he just grins. "But for different worlds, we perform different roles, yes?" Beth finds herself nodding: there is something persuasive about Bernadette, magnetic. "It is a good performance. It sets you apart, from the nerds, their polos, the thick glasses. Much like Benjamin, who performs as pirate."

"A world that rigid," Benny says, "could use more pirates. People don't think as differently and broadly there, as they do here."

"I will never," Bernadette replies, "Understand your fascination with structures of control." As Beth is parsing that, she finds herself the focus of the woman's attention again. "You are now in Paris, and I think you enjoy this - as much as you do your Courrèges and your caviar, yes?"

Almost unwillingly, Beth nods. Bernadette beams at her. "And so, Benny has brought you to us, to find inspiration. And, I think, to pick out a piece or two himself."

Beth looks around. The room, though gloomy with the oncoming evening, is filled with pops of bright color, vivid art, vividly-dressed people. She looks at Benny. "Something," she says firmly, "with color."

Bernadette claps. "Yes, excellent!" she says, and to Alek, comments, "I know you have some pieces squirreled away. In your trunks, after the gallery showing."

Alek sighs, long and put upon. "Refeathering a bird does not make a new bird," he complains. 

Benny leans forwards, stares at Alek until the artist looks up. "Don't begin to think you understand this bird yet," he says. "Though, I'd like to look at these feathers."

"I am so glad we all agree," Bernadette rises, offering Beth a hand up. Surprised, she takes it, and finds herself hugged quite swiftly. "Ah, Beth Harmon." Bernadette's smile deepens. "We are all going to have so much fun."


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An exchange of rooks.

Steamer trunks are dragged out, thrown open in Alek's space, and clothes spread over the open lids: an assortment of wildly-beaded, sparkling clothing that is unalike the boutique as it would be the sober dresses of Methuen. Velvet, silk, multi-hued cotton is revealed: more beaded pieces as well, wild assortments of glass and shell and sequin.

Among these pieces are the remains of overalls, uniforms, veils, and what appear to be modified ballgowns. 

"Alek is a fine tailor," Bernadette tells Beth. "But he is also a magpie, and finds fine treasures and packs them away. Many of the artists here, they are the same. She picks up a short green velvet jacket, passes it to Beth. "Try this," she suggests.

Beth shrugs into the bolero. It is embroidered all over with bright flowers, pinning down swathes of feathers, frogged down the front with bronze. In the cracked standing mirror, her hair stands out against it, vividly crimson. 

"You should perhaps think of growing this out," Bernadette suggests, touching the crop of her hair. "This is natural, yes?"

Benny, meanwhile, has found a sleeveless camouflage jacket and shrugged into it. Black sequins glitter against the sharp lines: a skull applique stands out amongst them. 

"You look even more like a pirate now." Beth tells him. He laughs.

"But now," he replies, "I'm a much fancier pirate."

She purses her lips. "Debatable."

"You must take this," Bernadette insists, and throws a broad shawl, more a long sheet of fabric, around her. It is dark grey, and sparkling with large beads, and flashing dots of mirror. Light dances off of her as she turns, flashing here and there from the ashen fabric. "It is a piece of captivate attention, and I think that will suit you."

"Where will I wear it?" Beth asks. 

"Here, there. Out into the cold!" Bernadette unwinds it. "Unless you do not wish it."

"I wish it," she finds herself saying, and the fabric is folded, whisked away. Benny is pulling on a billowing, dark red pirate blouse, with lace, his pale chest exposed by the slashed neck. "You have a look," she tells him.

"If it works," he says smugly, "Why not?"

Her lips quirk up, and then she's smiling at him, helpless, hopeless.

"Here!" Bernadette calls, and she holds up a brilliant white sheath dress trimmed with pale brown feathers, a long strand of shell beads. "Come here, Beth Harmon. Let us see you in this..."

* * *

Something's been bubbling under her skin, since the flight, since Benny arrived, almost. Like a vast inhale, like the ground is about to go unsteady beneath Beth. Christ, she wants a drink. Wants out. They sit on the roof of the commune building, Bernadette leaving them alone for a moment, off to get... a bottle of wine? Another smoke? Something.

The marijuana isn't doing Beth any favors. She feels too big, too small for her skin, irritable here. Benny's too comfortable, and paying too much attention to Bernadette. 

She feels herded. Pushed. So finally, she says, "You planned all this. Bringing me here."

He just stares at her, says "Are we fighting? Because if we're fighting, I'd rather be further from the edge."

"God damn you, take me seriously!"

"Harmon, I have never taken anything more seriously in my life."

"How do you know these people? How do you know her?"

"Oh are we jealous, now?" Benny pulls a cigarette out of somewhere, lights it. "You knew I had a life before you. That bother you?"

"You're herding me, like I don't know what you're doing. What, would you rather I be more like Bernadette."

"Christ, no. Beth, I just thought..."

"Talking to me like I'm some kind of government stooge!" Tears prick at her eyes. 

"Harmon, will you let me fucking speak?" He raises his voice, and she glares at him, defiant.

"I," he says, ragged. "Chose you. And your fancy dresses, and your hotels, and your prim, proper self. But I'm me, Beth. And maybe you don't know what that is."

"What is that, some kind of homeless bum?" The second the words are out of her mouth, she wishes she could take them back. His face has gone immobile, unmoving. 

"That what you think of me, Beth?" He flicks the ash off the cigarette. "Shit. Well, I guess a beautiful girl like you wouldn't want to be seen with... what is it? Some kind of godless hippie."

"Benny," she says.

His eyes are dark. "Maybe you should leave."

"Stop," she says, "telling me what to do."

"Fucking, push back then!" he roars. "You agreed to come to Paris, see the city. Did you think it was going to be all chess all day, every day, and then we'd fuck? God, Beth, is that all you want?"

Her stomach is a hard, immobile boulder, because she hadn't imagined anything else. Benny dressed up, sharp beside her. Benny across the chessboard. Benny in her bed. She shakes her head, helplessly. 

"No." she says, but she's at a loss for words, a loss for thoughts.

"Stop," he says, "making me into your hero and your punching bag."

"I should go." comes out of her mouth, and she turns, almost running, almost knocking Bernadette over on her way out. She heard the woman say Benny's name, her voice soft, concerned, and by the time she's halfway down the first of the winding staircases, there's tears streaming down Beth's face.

* * *

There's so many fewer taxis in this part of town, and Beth, lacking any other idea of where she's been taken, finds her way towards the Seine. She's just beginning to smell the stench of it, when someone grabs her arm. "Beth? Beth Harmon?"

She whirls, and nearly slaps Cleo.

"Oh my god," she says.

"Your eyes," Cleo tells her, "Are a mess. Come."

Beth finds herself dragged into a bar, past the bar, into a washroom, and sat on a toilet. She sits compliant while Cleo, making soothing, disapproving noises, wipes her face clean, lines her eyes. 

"Now," Cleo says. "You smell like you were having fun, but look like an argument. Should I guess, or will you tell me? Perhaps over a drink."

"I'm not supposed to be drinking," Beth says. "I'm an alcoholic. I don't stop. Especially when I'm... like this. And Benny."

"You definitely need a drink." Cleo insists. "We will make sure you stop, Victor and I."

"Cleo, I can't... I don't know what to do."

"Then we will decide together, yes?" Cleo takes her arm, tugs her up. "I am very sure I owe you after your loss. Come."

She finds herself seated at the bar. "Gin," Cleo tells Victor, "Perhaps a Le Forum. No more than two for Ms. Harmon, she's an alcoholic. I'll have one as well." 

"It is good," the tall bartender says, "To have limits." 

Cleo touches her arm, turns her on the stool, so they lean in together, like parentheses on a page. "Now," she says. "You will tell me what happened. I am sure the night brought you here on the wind, to find me, and so I will help."

"You sound like Bernadette." Beth says miserably. "Does everyone in this city know exactly what to say?

"Bernadette! Benny took you to see the anarchists, then!" Cleo clicks her tongue. "A strange group. You do not seem like you enjoyed it."

"Yes. No. I don't..." Beth rubs her forehead. "It wasn't like anything I've seen before. Benny just keeps... telling me what to do. Taking me places. Doing everything. I feel like I'm out of control, and he's in control."

Cleo lights a cigarette, takes a deep drag, pulls a second from her purse, and lights it off the end of her own, passes it to Beth. She inhales, deeply, grateful. Beside her, a drink is set down. 

With a sigh, she picks it up, stares at it. Sips, cautiously. The taste of gin is like an old friend, reminding her of Alma, of flights across the US, and she closes her eyes briefly, savoring it. Something unknots in her stomach, and on the heels of it is shame, memories of being out of control, needing the drink.

She sets it down on the bar. "It is bad?" the bartender asks her.

"It is too good," she tells him. "It's quite well made." Satisfied, he turns, serving a customer at the far end.

"Such a fighter you are," Cleo says. "All that energy wrapped up in one game, and no opponents."

"I keep fighting Benny," Beth stares at the drink. She doesn't, she think, need it: there's a fragile bubble of calm that's been growing since Cleo sat her down in the washroom. "And he's so... nice about it. Except I think it's too much."

"Mmm." Cleo takes a long drag, tilts her head back, blows a plume of smoke. "You are both fighters. Men don't usually like this. And you are both usually in control."

"He's just... he's so different, from how I thought he was, in New York. Or before." Beth takes another cautious sip of her drink. "I knew he lived in a basement, I know he's... a pirate. Different."

"Bohemian," Cleo supplies.

"Yes. Beth turns the glass in a circle on the bar. "And I'm not."

"What are you, then?" Cleo sips her own drink. "A chess champion is not all Beth Harmon was born to be." She grins sardonically at Beth. "I told you, you make a poor model. There is too much in your head, and not all of it is chess?"

"No," Beth says, "Some of it is just an orphan girl with nice clothes." She taps her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, frowns.

Cleo scoffs. "You are young. So am I. There is an entire world out there, and I think you have seen only small slivers of it. Chess tournaments. Airports. Sometimes, bars."

"But I want," Beth said, "To discover it for me." She sighs. "I liked it," she admits, partially to herself. "The painting, the trunks of clothing. It was like another world, but it was... it was because I was with Benny."

"If you think that," Cleo says, "You should spend more time with Bernadette. Not with Benny. She would not have let you stay so long, if she did not like you. If you did not fit, even in such fashionable clothing."

"Alek called me a..."

"Alek," Cleo says sharply, "Is a genius with a needle. But very poor with humans. And, I hear, in bed." Despite herself, Beth laughs. "Ignore what that sour man said to you, and value only his sartorial advice. The bitter politics of the anarchists are their own."

"Cleo," Beth says, "Do you know of Benny and Bernadette are... together? I know Benny's had... not a traditional sort of relationship." She strings together the final words awkwardly, and Cleo laughs.

"Not all of the bohemians are for free love, and those that are, they do not sleep with everyone. Did he tell you this himself, that he is one?"

"He said we didn't have to discuss it." 

"Well, he is a fool, then, to speak of it and then take you to the commune." Cleo says. "But he is a man, and we must forgive them sometimes for their foolishness."

Beth laughs. "You're right, I suppose."

"Benjamin," Cleo says, "Has taken lovers. Sometimes two at a time." She sets the stub of her cigarette down in the ashtray, grinds out the cherry. "But he has never brought them to Paris - only slept with them here, and moved on. No chess, no shared bed, simply a moment between them." She studies Beth, her dark-kohled eyes serious. "And if he had, you must forgive him it, or find peace with it, to have loved before."

"I'm jealous," Beth said, "Of Bernadette. He seemed so much more comfortable there."

"This is your first, mmm, partnership, yes?" Cleo asks. "You must learn to take these things as they are. Has he given you reason to be jealous?"

"Well..." Beth stares at her drink.

"No. You are uncomfortable." Cleo tells her. "You have seen a side of him you did not know, and now you have met another side of his life, another world, one you did not know either." She sips her drink. "And perhaps your own world, being so narrow and focused, feels less rich for it."

Beth sips her drink, thinks. The level in the glass is dropping slowly as they sit, as they speak, but the old craving hasn't returned. The familiar peace is there - but not the urgency. 

"I ran out on him," she says. "Well, he told me to go."

"Striking sparks and fires," Cleo says. "Let him cool just enough. Then take him to bed." She lights another cigarette. "A man's temper is sweet in bed, if he has the restraint."

The thought of it is warming, and Beth blushes. Sips her drink to cover it. "I suppose," she says.

Cleo laughs. "I envy you. And him," she admits. Reaches out, traces Beth's cheek. "It was sweet, the night we shared. But you must find balance with him before either of you consider others. If," she shrugs, "You decide to consider others."

Beth blushes. "We'll see," she says. She finishes her drink, and Victor is there. "No, thank you," she says. 

"Not such an alcoholic," Cleo says to her. "But perhaps wound too tight." Cleo pulls a small silver case from her purse, extracts a card. "Take this," she says. "It's my address and number here. Call me this week, I am between assignments, and assignations."

Beth takes it, slips it into her own purse. "I will," she promises, and turns to Victor. "The check?" she asks. "And... I think I will need a taxi."

She hugs Cleo, outside, and kisses one cheek, then the other. "Thank you," she tells her. "I'll call you, later this week."

"Do," Cleo tells her. "Sleep well, and give him my regards."

The door of the taxi closes, and Beth leans back into the seat, exhales. 

It is a long, quiet drive back to Les Marrionniers, and the room is quiet, cool and empty. Beth prepares for bed, slips beneath the sheets, and despite herself, passes quickly and quietly into a dreamless sleep.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> independent moves

There's a familiar clicking as she comes awake, pieces moving on a board. Without opening her eyes, Beth wonders at it - Benny, like her, doesn't need the board itself to play, but it's a touchstone, now. Comfort. She wonders, as she turns over against the pillows, how unsettled he is. Without opening her eyes, she says, "I'm glad you're back."

She opens her eyes when he sits down beside her, looking down at her. Hatless, black t-shirt. He touches her cheek, looks at her, leans down, kisses her softly, without passion, as if in comfort. 

"You worried me," he said. "I shouldn't have said what I said, and then you were gone, in a part of town you didn't know."

"I shouldn't have started it," she said. "I was just... angry. I don't know why."

Carefully, he says "I know the commune can be a lot." She sits up, settles agains the pillows, watches him. "You should know, I've never had that kind of relationship with Bernadette."

She looks away. "I ran into Cleo. By chance."

"Cleo?" 

"She explained some things to me." Beth looks at him. "Like it isn't my business if she was. Or I should be... less childish."

"No one," Benny says, "Would ever accuse you of being childish."

"Maybe that's a problem." Beth says. "We had a drink." At his look, she says, "One drink. I didn't... need it. It was nice."

"Yeah? Maybe not a habit you want." His look is steady, serious. "But that's... good."

Beth wraps her arms around her knees, looks at him. "I think," she says, "I don't mind the commune. But... I've had a very limited life, I think." Lifts a shoulder in a shrug, looks at him. "And told myself I'm worldly."

He leans in, and kisses her forehead. She tilts her face up, but he's already drawing away. "My own worldly self," he says, "Thinks you should have coffee before we talk about this."

She laughs. Tosses back the blankets. "Then we'll get coffee." She takes in the pile of folded cloth on a chair, looks at him. "You brought back the clothing, from the commune."

He smiles. "Bernadette insisted." Leans in, kisses her again, draws back. "She said you should have her number - and come back whenever you want. I added it to your book."

She smiles at him. "I think," she says, "I will."

* * *

It seems more beautiful to sit in the cafe next to their pension, and drink coffee, eat pastries. Benny is reading a local newspaper - he is also wearing the vest with the skull applique from the commune. Beth smiles behind her coffee mug, opens her notebook to the new entry for "Paris Community", then opens her city map and inspects it.

She cannot tell, tracing a finger down the map, how she got from the commune to the bar she met Cleo at. Or, even, where the bar is. Discomfited, she folds it, slips it into the book of notes, and leans back in her chair. Runs over a pair of chess games from the day before - there had been talented players there, at the Jardin.

Between the moving of pawns and rooks and knights, she remembers the hypnotic swaying of the paint-drenched scarves, the down-turned curve of Alek's mouth. The simple beauty of Bernadette's hair - the lovers entwined in the open, uncaring of watching eyes, of anything but each other.

"I don't know how I found Cleo last night, she says. "In all this city."

Benny looks over the top of the newspaper. "It's not surprising," he says "That she would haunt the neighborhood near the commune. Cleo is another hanger-on, like me."

She sips her coffee, sets it down on the saucer. Were it not for the hat and the vest, they might as well be another young couple, she thinks. Like any other. 

But they aren't, and not simply by virtue of chess.

"It's hard to imagine, finding them," she says "with all that time on chess."

Benny folds the newspaper, leans back, slouching in the chair. "Well," he says, "I liked Paris, when I was younger. Still do," he adds. "And I drank. God, I drank. Time was you couldn't have out-drunk me. Eventually, I drank with the right people."

"That's all?" Beth asks.

"Well," he says. "I stayed after a tournament, most of a year. And came back. There was always something to do." He crosses his booted ankles. "Paint signs, move the commune, wire lights for a show." Waggles an eyebrow. "Fleece rich fools out of poker money. But, plane tickets are what they are, and my title mattered to me." He shrugs. "I could either grow up or be another beautiful, bored, broke has-been."

Beth swallows. Her throat, for all the coffee, is suddenly dry. "Like me." she says.

Benny tilts his hat up, looks at her. "Like you were," he corrects.

"Well," she says, laughing almost. "I play chess. One day, there will be someone else who can beat me." She glances down at the coffee. "There's not much else. Badminton, I suppose."

Badminton, which she's not touched since coming to Paris, she thinks. And no letter to Jolene, either.

"I thought," Benny said, "if I introduced you to a few people, you could figure some of that out."

"When I was in the orphanage," Beth said, "The girls all used to dream of being adopted by rich people, so they could have anything they wanted." She leans forwards, elbows on table. Just looks at him. "But the problem is, I wanted to win another game."

"Nothing wrong with that." Benny says.

"No," Beth agrees. "But there's more. More than Kentucky, too." She hasn't thought once about the house, she realizes. Not in the week since they've been in Paris. Not about the day to day, any of it. "I'm just in Kentucky because it's familiar," she tries, out loud.

"Nothing wrong with that either. Look," Benny says. "You're in a strange, beautiful city, expanding your mind. And you're young. Maybe let that be before you go looking to uproot your entire life, or calling yourself a has-been, like me."

She blinks at him. She wonders, suddenly, what he'll look like with a bit of silver in his hair.

It's a much more appealing thought than him in a finely tailored suit.

* * *

That afternoon, she calls a club in the city, takes a walk on her own with a bag of workout clothes and her racket, and spends a good half hour getting solidly trounced at badminton by Parisian girls. It's not quite the polished focus and control of chess - and there's certainly no victory to savor - but the soreness in her body and the lassitude of it all, allow her a calm acceptance to finding a hotel room empty of Benny on her return.

She washes up, changes clothes, slips the city map into her purse. Then hesitates, one hand over a matching coat. She selects the mirrored shawl instead, wraps it about herself, turns to let the light flash from the fabric. It's a striking look, and one she finds herself content to leave the pension in.

The landlady sniffs at her as she leaves, but she's certainly gathering attention as she strolls the street, some skeptical - most, from younger pedestrians, admiring. A glimpse in a shop window as she passes shows her that the mirrors, catching now the sunlight, rather than lamps, shine like stars against the dark wool.

With no set destination in mind, she wanders in the vague direction of the commune, leaving the expensive regions of Paris behind. Eventually, she begins, in the dimming light of the late afternoon, to find landmarks recognizable from the taxi ride - and then a familiar street.

But she does not see Cleo in the bar, and though the bar beckons in familiarity - she sees Victor there, serving a few customers - she does not want a drink. The thought propels her on, and she stops, eventually, in a shop with rather fewer upscale clothes as the rich districts have.

There's neither mirrors nor beads here, but she tries on several things, finds a few that might suit an updated look - and examines her hair. With pursed lips, she turns her head this way and that.

No, she thinks, I will continue to cut my hair.

Night has set in by the time she returns to the pension. There's a note from Benny on the table now - "at poker, back late - call Bernadette!"

She does not. She instead moves a piece on the board in play, packs away her new clothing, and turns in for the night - content, if not overjoyed, and feeling altogether pleased with herself.

Later, she wakes, hears the door, and the sounds of Benny returning, taking off his boots, trying to be quiet. When he slips into bed, she turns, curls against his warmth, smells whiskey, cigarette smoke.

She slips back asleep as he says something to her that's lost to the dark and the night.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> please note updated tags and rating.

The girl needs space, and all Benny wants to do is fuck her into the hotel mattress until all thoughts of fighting are out of her head. He wants to play chess half-nude, and then, after some vaguely-imagined tilting of her queen, then her king, tilt her back over. She's come in smelling faintly of liquor and mostly of cigarettes - even in bed, she's composed.

So he kisses her sweetly, like a noble knight, like a supportive boyfriend, and leashes the urge to push this reasonable, vulnerable Beth back into this erratic orbit they've found. 

He'd like to get drunk himself (she claims she restrained herself, but how the hell's he to know?), but it's early in the day, so instead he takes coffee. Calls Bernadette (she's out), calls some theatre friends (they're in). 

By mid-afternoon, he's across town, and hip-deep in their latest semi-professional tragedy: an adaptation of Rite of Spring with a complete lack of the proper equipment and absolutely none of the venue (an underground catacomb - how goddamn trendy) wired for near what the client wants.

While the rest of the local theatre friends are wringing their hands about collective decision-making Benny storms in, a bougie American in a leather jacket and a constantly-lit cigarette, and kicks some ass. By the time they're all hip-deep in ancient, salvaged wiring, electrical tape and tools, he's feeling like a conquering general - almost better than savagely beating some worthy enemy over the board.

His problem, he tells himself, is he's gone all goddamn soft on Beth Harmon, his natural enemy and match. Were he a predator. But then again, there's something to this collective shit too.

If Benny wants to (likes to) be honest with himself, though, he's sick as hell of losing to the little darling prodigy, and watching her prim and proper young lady routine. He almost, almost misses the beer-soaked girl trying to shut him up with a flirt at the bar. If she's an innocent darling, then she's a filthy one, and has been ever since they met.

Lunch is some kind of pate, fresh vegetables, bread, seated with legs dangling over the edge of an ancient stone tomb with letters too faded to read. It's a lesser blasphemy, if he wants to acknowledge his childhood faith, but fuck he's not down for that, much less on a day he's weighing the merits of dating his filthy innocent prodigy.

He wants a drink, and will probably get one. There's a meeting of the production's investors at a bar - the promise of poker and whiskey on someone else's dime. There's snickers, some mocking when he says he has to tell his girl where he is.

He gets back, finds her racket leaning next to the wall next to her gym bag. No note. He hopes she's not drinking, but doesn't hope very hard.

It's almost dark when he gets to the bar, but he's arriving very fashionably late. His compatriots clap him on the shoulder, introduce him to the backers of the play - one of whom is a Russian, whose eyes flash in recognition. No one Benny knows - which means it's either KGB or a chess fan. Still. "Anything you want, Mr. Watts. Anything at all - but don't keep us waiting." is a strong incentive to not give two shits.

There's a girl at the bar, long, fire-red hair, and her eyes are sharp, sharp as she searches for matches in her purse - sharper when he offers his Zippo flame to her. She leans in, cigarette between her lips, lights it, and there's a battle flag in her eyes - or the look of a moth. He clicks the zippo shut, and she leans back, regards him with drooping, red-lashed regard. "You don't see many cowboys in Paris," she tells him. "What exactly are you looking to rustle, sir?"

"Oh, you know." It's like falling off a log, that damn simple. "Night's young." His drink's being pushed across the bar, and she steals it, steals a sip. Damn but he's weak. "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" he drawls. All a game. All a damn game - sips the drink over her lipstick.

"I haven't decided yet." she tells him, smirking. He smirks back.

"Well, when you figure it out, maybe I'll be here."

Guilt is easily washed down with high-dollar Scotch, and he rejoins his compatriots with a clear conscience. 

The backers, Russian included, are listening to the clamoring of the crew when he joins their booth, and he lets them yammer on, sipping his whiskey, saying nothing. Finally, the Russian says "And what do you say, Mr. Watts?"

Falling off a log. Throw the hook, let them take the bait. "Well," he says "Tomas here found enough salvaged cable from another show to let us do most of the audio and lighting today. But it's a tinderbox down there - a few more francs and we can keep the place from going up. On the other..." he shrugs "Might suggest you lower the attendance, or the number of dancers. Your choice."

It's laid out, simple for them, less blathering. Tomas tries speaking up, and Benny doesn't bother talking, just stares him down, unblinking. This is not a fucking democracy here, this is a stage production, and the backers should have known the miracle Tomas and the crew are trying to pull off isn't exactly priceless.

"We can pay for more wiring," the Russian says. "Enough to deal with your concerns. But it will mean less of a budget for the sound system."

"Sure." Benny sips his Scotch, savors the peat of it, lets that moment hang. He's got them now, as sure as anything. Comfortable, slouched, crew and KGB man and accomplices all a solid audience to him. "I don't think that's a problem. We can find a new sound system faster than fire suppression systems - and the catacombs have good sound quality."

Tomas looks thunderstruck. "Where do you..." Benny cuts him off.

"Not important. Look, Mr. Semenov, yeah? You make sure we have that wiring bright and early tomorrow, or an order in to a supplier with a good will-call, and I'll make sure your sound system lives up to the Stravinsky."

The other backers are all looking at Semenov. Yeah, if this isn't Soviet underworld, this is absolutely a KGB-backed cultural initiative. Maybe to be played out for more caviar, maybe just for money. 

Maybe for a road back to Moscow, and he's letting the rest of the crew speak amongst each other now, it's all laughter, shit-talking. At the bar, the redhead has glanced at him twice by his view - he flicks his eyes up, and she's watching again as he lifts his whiskey, tilts it slightly, as if in salute. Sips.

He breaks eye contact first. Semenov is talking to Tomas, but watching him like a hawk, or a vulture. 

There's another round of drinks, and he buys one for the redhead. Then they're back - redhead included, invited by Semenov - into the bowels of the bar, the private room, the polished wood - the collection of backers, hangers-on, the rich Parisians looking for a thrill and to lose a buck.

Benny could cheat here. Has before. But he hangs his hat on his chair, slouches some more, lets a lazy, easy performer's grin come. The crew's gone - they don't have money for this - but Benny doesn't need them now. He's got his hook - and a source of profit for this fucking expensive almost-honeymoon. And a redhead with fire-bright hair opening her purse, and her little black book, just for him.

He sips more Scotch, and he fleeces Semenov just lightly enough to figure out his backers. Does well enough - at the end of the night, he has a business card with Semenov's info in his pocket, and an invitation to come back later that week. Walks out with his drinks covered, a bit of walking around money, and that's just fine - he'll make the real money over a week or so, not the first night.

One more for the road - red wine on a belly of Scotch, like a rookie or a man who knows he's damned, and a light, lingering kiss to the mouth of the redhead, who salutes him with her own glass on his way out the door, victorious in the night.

* * *

In the dark, later, he's drunk, terribly drunk - but not so drunk that he misses Beth waking up just enough to mold herself to his side, use his shoulder as a cushion. She sighs something incomprehensible.

There, in the dark, headache just starting to hit him, he buries his nose in her hair. "I'm sorry," he whispers.

There's no reply. She's fallen back asleep.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the game is not chess.

All the conversations they're so terribly bad at having pile up between them in the pension, but it's not so bad as all that. Beth plays some of the best chess she's played in her life, the games with Benny become a background part of life as his game remains stagnant, and she's even getting better at badminton. Her muscles are less and less sore, until her body is as far from where she was in Lexington, as it was from the alcoholic binging from before.

She is sleek and slight and well turned out, glorying in the admiration (and sometimes, confusion,) of Paris.

"I think," she tells Cleo, over her second martini that night. "I don't see Benny as much, but he's so much more... him now." She touches one of the jade bangles on her wrist, then a silver one. "He's still bringing me presents, and sometimes flowers, but the other night..." She's embarrassed, briefly, and Cleo leans forwards, touches her wrist in the same place, watching, waiting.

She clears her throat. "He got home drunk, and pinned me to the bed, and..." 

"And?" Cleo prompts, amused. Beth bites her lip, feels like a little girl.

Says: "I liked it."

* * *

News gets around the Paris press that Beth Harmon has taken up quasi-residence, and soon she begins to get cards, letters. She's driven to ask their landlady for advice, and finds that one of the young gentlemen staying in the pension is a lawyer, well-connected enough to make introductions - and advice.

"This one," he says, holding up an immaculately-typed letter, "is from a very rich family. Fashionable. They have two young children... and they play chess. They should like their children to play somewhat better chess."

Beth has been entirely too idle, and the occasional drink of gin is becoming slightly more usual, so she says "Yes. Immediately. I'll call the household in the morning."

And with that she becomes an extremely well-heeled curiosity. She quickly realizes she's as ornamental as the marble statues in the garden - but the money is very good, and there is a steady stream of challengers, with varying levels of competency. The children aren't even up to the level of some of the local Kentucky challengers, but one devoutly wishes to walk on the moon, and the other wishes to become an architect. 

Neither of these situations is terribly objectionable, and in her free time, which has become rather more precious of late, she puts on an entirely separate set of clothing, lines her eyes heavy, then heavier with kohl, and goes to the commune.

Sometimes she finds Benny there, or he finds her. He's distant, but sharp when he's focused on her. They play fewer games, now, but to Beth, it feels like New York - that dangerous edge of competition underlying easy banter, and easier sex.

"You sound happy," Cleo observes, and Beth ashes her cigarette, wishes she dared slip out for one of the joints in her little clutch purse. 

"He's started to smell like perfume, and it's not mine." She tells Cleo.

Cleo rests her hand on Beth's own, and then on her thigh. "You must not go back to him tonight." She says. Beth's eyes flick up to Cleo's own. Smiles.

Benny will be so fucking angry.

She can't wait.

* * *

Benny's gone in the morning when she stumbles in, reeking of her own perfume, a curt note dashed off left on the table "in cats - bernadette dinner later". 

Beth taps the note against her lips. Packs a slightly larger purse than usual, goes to work.

* * *

The shawl is hardly discreet or well-heeled, and so she's not surprised when the mistress of the house "accidentally" stops her in the foyer before leaving. "Madame Harmon, you look quite unusual!" she cries, arms outstretched. Beth comes, is polite, a kiss on each cheek. Her employers like the polite fiction that she is a friend - Beth does not dissuade this, nor does she encourage it. 

It is a fact, like the Chanel No. 5 Cleo keeps in her bedroom, or the way Benny smells when he's had too much whiskey - none of it is a pattern of interest to her, and she studiously ignores it, when it suits her.

"A costume party?" her employer pries, eyes alight with curiosity. Better than disapproval, but Beth has called a taxi.

"Yes," she says. "the theme is counterculture."

As the woman is praising the novelty, and the cloak, Beth is sweeping it closer, blandly concealing a dress of mirrors, and barely any of the soldier's boots she's taken to wearing for her "other life". She nods, smiles, sweeps out, invincible to the night.

Bernadette has made chicken with herbs, some bitter greens, a masterful assortment of root vegetables. Her eyes sweep Beth in brief surprise, then approval before she gestures her in to the dining room. Eyes go to her as she sheds the thick shawl, and the conversations distinctly pauses. Smiling, Beth looks to Benny last.

Benny's all over dust and she catches him with eyes narrowed, not entirely pleased. "You look ridiculous," he hisses. She smiles back at him.

"Well, it could be worse, I could be covered in catacomb dust to dinner," she aims back, and he smiles at her, amused despite himself. Easy, point, match, routine.

"She looks beautiful, Benjamin, and if you don't approve, then she'll come sit next to me." Bernadette objects. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, her blouse of green silk untucked from a pair of jeans. "It's a masterpiece of Alek's." she adds.

"He's been charging me for the work," Beth puts in. "I think he has his eye on something extraordinary." 

"Perhaps he wishes to dress his muse entirely in pearls!" Bernadette teases.

"His muse." Benny's elbows come forward, onto the table, like percussion, and Beth can taste the air, the electricity. "Is that what he's calling you?" Beth just smiles, sunny as anything. Here we go, she thinks.

But there's Bernadette, leaning forwards, disarming the incipient war, and the rest of the table looking nervous at the prospect of a couple's spat. "Benjamin," she reproves, and Benny just scowls at her, leans back. Is staring across the table at Beth as she leans in to listen, lips parted, to Bernadette describing the menu, the occasion for the gathering, the wine she's procured out of the back of a disliked politician's house.

When she's done, Beth lifts her wine glass, toasts the table. Catches Benny looking across the table at the wall a little too fixedly. She smiles at him, glass still raised, till he turns back, and then sets it down, turns to Bernadette to praise it.

The wine flows, the food is magnificent, the conversation, even without a distinctly nettled Benny, a relief after days of society and children. Beth plays up the ridiculous fictions of the bourgeoisie: listens attentively to others, offers witty repartee, agrees to pose for a photographer - perhaps next week.

She finds herself touching her hair, slinking, sinking into some of the movements Cleo has made, touching Bernadette's wrist. Over the dinner, they speak more and more to each other as if in private, right in front of Benny. His face is freezing over, going absolutely blank behind his lazy grin, his faintly narrowed eyes.

* * *

Tangled amidst the sheets, her lips pressing into Beth's hipbone, Cleo looks up at her, face a wreck of kohl and lipstick. Beth licks her lips, tries to catch her breath.

"And then?" Cleo asks.

"Then I offered to help with the dishes."

* * *

Benny's talking poker in the living room, and Beth's in the kitchen, not talking at all. Five minutes over plates, and she's pushed up against the sink, Bernadette's hands hard around her hips, soapy fingers pressing mirrored disks into Beth's bare skin. She's fighting to breathe between frantic kisses. Beth scrabbles, braces herself on he counter's edge, swaying, under attack. 

She's been provoking, playing Benny all night, mirrored dress and wine glass and being entirely obvious. Were she able to string more thoughts together, she might have realized how terribly obvious it was that Benny wasn't the only one in the room - or the only person she was provoking. 

Cleo is so much gentler, if persuasive, but Beth can't mind this, doesn't mind this. Bernadette is kissing her neck when Beth sees Benny frozen in the doorway, eyes wide, something between shock, anger, and desire fighting for attention on his face.

Beth smirks at him. Turns her face, lifts a hand, grabs Bernadette's hair, kisses her. As her eyes clothes, she hears Benny crossing the kitchen, feels the weight of Bernadette pressed down upon her, pinning her, and then her shocked, not unhappy gasp.

* * *

"How like the man, to need to put himself where he wasn't needed." Cleo drawls.

Beth finishes fixing her hair, turns. "Wasn't he?"

* * *

Later, in Bernadette's bed, the woman turns over onto her stomach, looks at both of them, Benny, eyes wide, smoking, exhausted, Beth, with her makeup no doubt smeared, smoking her own, not looking at him. 

"The two of you need to talk," she says, her voice hoarse. She steals Benny's cigarette from him. Looks at Beth until they meet eyes. "This is beneath both of you, and I will not be back in bed with either of you until you agree to behave like adults who aren't on the verge of spoiling my dinner parties." She exhales a long plume of smoke. 

Beth nods, mute. Doesn't look at Benny. He doesn't look at her. Bernadette scoffs, pinches Beth, who yelps. Nearly drops her cigarette.

"You," she says, "are both fucking terrible in the afterglow, and can leave." She pushes herself up from the bed, stalks off to the bathroom.

There is a terribly awkward dressing (Beth cannot, for the life of her, find her underwear - or the other stocking), and it's Beth who calls a cab.

They continue not looking at each other all the way back, and the landlady isn't pleased to see either of them, or Beth's mirrored dress.


	20. Chapter 20

In their room, she drinks water, while he looks out the window, smoking his third cigarette since coming back to the temporary home. Their latest game (untouched, two weeks running), sits on their table like an accusation. Beth doesn't so much as glance at it. 

"You know," he begins, at the same time she says "Benny." They look at each other. A beat.

"Is this working or isn't it?" after a long pause, the two staring at each other, not talking. She sips her water. "Us. Paris."

"Does it have to be about us?" He rejoins, flicks the ash off his cigarette. "You're grinding an axe, Beth."

"Not sure I picked it up," she fires back.

"Yeah well, we've both got ahold of it, someone's going to have to put it down." He stabs out the cigarette in the tray, turns, folds his arms. So theatric, she thinks, her lips pulling further into a frown. "Unless you really want to bury it in my head. Then it's not working."

"You've got other interests these days, seems like," she parries, easy.

"Lot of that going around, looked in the mirror lately?"

"Do you?"

"What, are we twelve?" He's moving as she looks away, lips pressed together. Squatting in front of her, takes her hands. "Look," he says. "We're not talking more than we're talking. Talk to me, Beth."

"I like Paris," she says. "I like you. Not just for chess, or in bed. Does it have to be more complicated than that?"

He looks at her, intent, they meet eyes, he's got one eyebrow up. Doesn't look upset, just - tired. Almost without thinking, she reaches out, brushes his hair back from his forehead, and his eyes close, leaning into her hand. Guilt tickles at her throat: what is she angry for? All the games they're playing. This isn't chess, but it's some other sort of victory that goes to ashes when she stops.

"It never had to be more complicated." he says. Closes his eyes, kisses her palm, like truce, like forgiveness. There's a nameless grief in her, then, and she leans down, presses her forehead against his.

If she says sorry, says anything, she'll cry, so they just stay there, until they find each other drawing themselves up, putting themselves to bed, wrapping around each other.

* * *

The next morning, a weekend morning, Benny leaves a long note, ending with inviting her to a gathering of his playmaking friends. He tells her he loves her - has left a flower from some cart on top of the folded note. Beth leaves it in a glass of water, and goes for breakfast.

Beth takes her coffee at a cafe, and writes slowly, carefully, to Jolene. Finds herself omitting (or blotting out) half of the letter. It takes two painstaking hours to complete her first draft, and the second, on clean paper, is so neutral as to be an indictment. 

It's tempting to model Jolene as she's begun to model Benny, all attack and riposte, but it's become too fun to pick apart at first, and is ending in hangovers.

Half of it, she thinks, is how much fun it is to conspire with Cleo. This makes up a good third of the first letter, and has been scratched out. The contents, however, are ringing around inside Beth's head. How much fun Cleo is. How much of their time in bed is simply... Beth's complaints against Benny.

How petty it seems in the morning light, in the eyes of Bernadette. "This is beneath you," she remembers.

Beth wants a cigarette, or Benny, wants to be back in bed. Wants some form of forgiveness, or Cleo. Or a drink. 

The first draft is stained and ugly. Beth crumples it in her fist. Finishes her coffee.

* * *

Bernadette doesn't answer at home, but she's at the collective, posing nude for a circle of young communists. Her eyes, fixed on the rafters, remain there until time is called, and then she steps down, wrapping herself in a robe, drinking some water. She doesn't look at Beth, even as Beth approaches her. 

"I'd like to apologize," she tells Bernadette. 

"Do you." Bernadette says. "What for? I'm sure I had a good time last night, especially after you left."

Beth winces. Tries again. "I didn't mean to put you in the middle of our... problems. We've talked."

"Look." Bernadette looks straight at her. "I'm not responsible for you two figuring out your... issues. Last night was fun, but it's not happening again." A beat. "With either of you. You're welcome to dinner, but I don't have time to sort you out."

Beth looks away. The surrounding communists are about their own affairs: there's a couple studiously looking away, the rest seem entirely unintereted. "Okay." Her eyes slide back to Bernadette. The woman raises an eyebrow at her. "Thank you."

Bernadette nods. Sweeps away, queenlike amongst the chaos of the commune.

* * *

She calls Jolene next, from the pension. It's later in the afternoon in Paris; mid-morning in the States. 

"Well hello stranger. Enjoying Paris?"

"Yes. Maybe. Things are complicated."

"You don't say. Benny not living up to the first few weeks?"

"It's not Benny, it's me." Beth admits. "And Benny. We're both... seeing other people. And each other. And not talking."

There's a long silence on the line. "Repeat that part again, you know I'm slow."

"I don't know." Beth admits. "I don't know what we're doing. It's fun, but we hardly see each other. I'm working, or I'm out with Cleo, or..."

"Wait." A long pause. "So you're not seeing other men? Some men are into that."

"Benny is, but it's... Cleo hates him."

"That is dumb." Jolene tells her. "You're sleeping with... what, she's a model, right? She hates your boy, who I may point out you're traveling with - you think that might be causing problems?"

Beth stares at the wallpaper. Feels dumb. "I didn't really think about it," she admits. "It was just... it was fun."

"So let me get this straight," Jolene drawls. "You're sleeping with a model and out having fun with her, and she hates Benny. And Benny's sleeping with... whoever. You're having issues with him, but is it because of who he's sleeping with?"

"I don't know who he's sleeping with."

"Girl, if both of you are fine with the other sleeping with other people, maybe that's good. I hate to say it, but maybe Benny's not the problem." A long pause. "Figure out what you want, Beth."

Beth sighs. "I don't know. Cleo is fun, but it's gotten... complicated."

"So uncomplicate it. You're the chess master."

"Pieces aren't people." Beth says. "And this isn't a game. Not anymore."

"So figure out what it is, and win that. You're smart, Beth. But if I were you... I'd spend a little less time with the models. And maybe more time with your boy if you want to keep him."

"Thanks." A beat. "You're right."

"Girl, I am always right, you don't know that by now?"


End file.
